Apart from providing financial services to customers, one of the important missions that Bank of Ayudhya Pcl has is to provide the knowledge that is a vital tool to boost business opportunities.
In this connection, Bank of Ayudhya organised “Krungsri Business Forum 2016: Thailand’s Opportunity” which took “World economic direction and Thailand’s business opportunities” as its theme. With the objective to help customers and others analyse and plan their investments more effectively, the event was honoured by the presence of leading figures from the public and private sectors. Among them Bank of Ayudhya experts helped boost confidence by pointing to growing economic trends and ways to penetrate interesting markets. The event received much attention from businesspeople and participants.
Supporting the business in line with the Bank of Thailand’s missions amidst economic restructuring, Dr. Veerathai Santiprabhob, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, said: “The Bank of Thailand will support the export sector by applying a management framework featuring flexible exchange rates to allow the Thai currency to move in parallel with demand and supply. In case of serious fluctuation which obstructs private sector investment or overall recovery, the Bank of Thailand will use appropriate tools to reduce fluctuations and run expansionary monetary policy to enhance economic expansion.”
Dr. Somchai Sujiapongse, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, representing the public sector, said: “In supporting Thai business the important thing is to achieve steady quantitative economic growth and drive economic and tax structure reform. This, in turn, will boost the competitive capabilities and raise the rate of gross domestic product (GDP) growth of the Thai economy. During the first half of the year, we stimulated the economy through application of measures and initiation of mega projects, firstly invested by the government as the private sector still lacks confidence. As a result of short term economic stimulus measures, GDP showed satisfactory growth of 3.2%. We hope that the private sector will have more confidence to invest in many projects in the future.”
As for the world economy, Mr. Chiwoong Lee, Senior Economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities addressed fluctuations in the world economy in his world economic outlook, saying: “From 2014, export-dependent countries have seen decreasing product exports. At the same time, many countries set higher tariff ceilings to protect their trade from the world.”
Dr. Luxmon Attapich, Senior Country Economist, Asian Development Bank (ADB) added: “It will be another tough year for Thai exports. The traditional markets for Thai industry include the US, Japan, and the European Union are starting to reduce their role. Fortunately, the Chinese and ASEAN markets, especially Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) have compensated for this, so Thailand can trade more because the CLMV growth rate is high.”
Mr. Tak Bunnag, Krungsri Head of Global Markets Group, Bank of Ayudhya Public Company Limited (Krungsri) said: “Thanks to the integration of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), CLMV has become one of the most interesting markets. This makes Bank of Ayudhya see greater investment opportunities in the markets near our home. These days, we can see continuous increasing investments in the region and the economic growth rate of many countries is increasing. Business investment channels are still open wide in neighbouring countries. Therefore, Thai investors should grab this opportunity during this period before investors from other countries come to take it.”
From the views of experts in this seminar, we believe that investors and businesspeople will have more confidence in the Thai economy and will see more investment channels and good investment opportunities to strengthen their business. This will help the overall Thai economy grow more steadily and sustainably.
This source first appeared on Bangkok Post Lifestyle.